The importance of diagrams representation in physics learning

Abstract

The research objective is to identify the use of diagrams representations in various cases of the physics system and identify questions that cannot be answered and whose answers are wrong in the topics of mechanics, optics and electricity. The study was conducted on 40 physics students who have taken introductory physics courses. The research instrument is in the form of questions that only require drawing answers. The findings of the study were only 9.84% who answered correctly, 32.18% of students answered incorrectly, and there were 57.98% who did not work or did not answer. It has been found that 49.3% of students did not answer correctly in mechanics, 10% in optics, and 40.7% in electricity. Furthermore, the number of students who did not work or did not answer found 16.1% in mechanics, 42.4% in optics, and 41.4% in electricity. Pedagogically, the implication of the results of this study is to be very important in physics education, namely to condition the balance of physics understanding not only in mathematical mastery but also in mastering the use of diagrams representations. Understanding the correct diagram will increase meaningful physics learning, especially in finding solutions to solve physics problems correctly.